Source for DARE funds disputed

Published: Sunday, March 24, 2013 at 4:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Saturday, March 23, 2013 at 11:34 p.m.

When Henderson County commissioners failed to reach a majority vote on spending $9,000 to study the need for a sixth ABC store, it sparked a debate on funding and queued a chorus of support for the sheriff's DARE program.

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Without a budget to write checks from, the ABC board asked the county to pay for the market study. A former alcoholic who now counsels children at the county's DARE camp asked commissioners to instead give $9,000 to the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program.

But Sheriff Charles McDonald thinks it's a mistake to link the two funding issues. While he wholeheartedly supports DARE camp, McDonald says private fundraising is the appropriate way to keep the program going.

Funding for DARE camp was hacked a few years ago after a 7.5 percent across-the-board countywide budget cut sliced into the Henderson County Sheriff's Office. The $30,000 reserved for the camp, an extension of the DARE curriculum taught to fifth graders in school, was trimmed to $5,000.

Seeing the 19-year-old camp now attended by close to 240 kids each August in peril, the community stepped up and raised funds.

“Last year when I came in, one of the first things that I was faced with was the fact that there had been some money raised from the private sector to go towards DARE camp. It would be hard to turn that money back and cancel the camp,” McDonald said.

He found a few more places to save money and added another $10,000 to the pot last year, spending a total of $15,000 of his department's budget to cover the camp. The Sheriff's Office also supports the program with about 15 staffed officers during the six-day run of the two three-day back-to-back camps.

“We provide a substantial support just in man hours” for the camp, McDonald said.

The department has no plans to stop the program as long as the funding to support it exists, but the sheriff believes the funding should not be pried from the pockets of taxpayers.

“I'm 100 percent behind the concept because of what the program does, the way it touches kids. It transforms lives,” McDonald said. “It certainly touches and blesses the lives of the officers that are involved. They're very passionate about it.”

He added that the county commissioners are also very pro-DARE. “I think the thing that kind of bothered me a little bit or I think bothered a lot of people was there was some sort of correlation that this $9,000, that has nothing to do with the sheriff's office… somehow took money out of our pocket to provide for DARE,” he said, which isn't the case. “I truly believe in this program, but I … have a problem believing that it is a responsibility of county government or the taxpayers at large to fund the whole thing.

“I think that there are enough entrepreneurs and businesspeople and folks that have really been touched by this program out here that, like in the days past, they'll step up and they'll provide the resources. And we'll certainly continue to provide all the support we can at the sheriff's office. But you have a county commission and a county manager, who are doing everything they can to ease the burden to the taxpayer within reason,” he said. “I think it's unfair to ask them to be fiscally responsible in that regard and then expect that this program or any other program like it ought to be funded by the taxpayer. I think if the taxpayers fund it, they ought to have the choice to fund it and they ought to be given the opportunity to write the check.”

McDonald said that he'd also like to get two years ahead in funding the program, but he agreed with past leaders who considered paying full-time sworn officers to focus entirely on fundraising was not fiscally prudent.

This year, the fate of the camp once again rests on public support. A little more than $14,000 has been raised so far in DARE dances and other benefits. A 24-hour Run for DARE is set to be held at North Henderson High School April 19-20.

Steve “Boulder” Dalton and his 12-year-old daughter, Matana, have helped lead the race in raising funds. The upcoming Run for DARE was their idea.

Dalton also is the man who asked the commissioners to divert funds for the ABC study to the camp.

Transforming testimony

Dalton has witnessed a transformation in the camp, not just in the fifth graders who attend it and in their slightly-older peers who serve as counselors, but in himself.

“It's hard to put a measure on how many of these kids are not becoming the Steve Dalton of 20 years ago and tied into that world, but the faces and the kids and the stories that we see every year lets me know how important this program is,” he said.

Dalton grew up in a good, Christian home, was a star student and stand-out athlete before he fell into a life of alcoholism and methamphetamine addiction. He was handed his first beer in ninth grade. He was busted in college for impaired driving after he funnelled a 12-pack and stole road signs with his friends. His parents brought him back home.

“I started working on the farm. I started going to A-B Tech … and that's when my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I watched my hero waste away before me, and the only way that I knew how to deal with that was more booze,” he said. “My dad, within six months, passed away, and the drinking progressed and progressed (until) where that one … Miller led to me drinking a fifth of liquor every single day.”

Another guy introduced him to cocaine to “help you drink more,” he said. “That one line of cocaine eventually led to me doing $300 worth of meth a week, tied into the methamphetamine world from California to Mexico, here in Henderson County. I was married at this time to my high school sweetheart. She just thought I had a drinking problem."

“I was physically a wreck. I weighed 220 pounds, skin draped over bones. I had holes ate in my stomach from all the meth and all the abuse,” he said. “I ended up in rehab in Brevard. I stayed clean for three days, thought I had it licked because that was the longest I'd been clean in five years. I came back home, stayed clean for three weeks. I ended up going and picking up some more dope. My thought was since I was clean I could sell it and get back out of debt. I couldn't make it home before I was in that dope.”

His wife left him.

“I sat there for three days trying to figure out how this guy with this bright future became an addict and an alcoholic and the only thing at that point that looked worse to me than my past was my future,” he said. “I knew I'd always been an addict. I'd always been an alcoholic. I hadn't been able to quit. In the drug world, I always carried a .357, and it was sitting beside me and I picked that .357 up and I put it to my head.

“I began to pull the trigger … a voice spoke,” he said, his voice quivering from a sudden onset of tears. The voice was not audible, he said, but he heard it clearly say, “ 'Let me in control of your life.' I got down on my knees and accepted Jesus Christ in my heart and raised up and said, ‘God, you don't have anything here, but if you'll take me I'm yours.' I gave my life to God then, and I haven't had a drug or a drink since.”

Dalton has been clean and sober for close to 20 years.

“It set me on fire, told me that my mission was to keep other kids from living this life. At least tell them what that life's all about,” Dalton said. “When I came out and began speaking three months into this, I promise you the drug world didn't like it. I've had hit-men show up, my house threatened to be burned down, (they) told me I needed to keep my mouth shut, but God has sustained (me), took care of (me) and I kept going. I've joined forces with the people that used to chase me in this mission.”

On a mission

Nineteen years ago, then-Sheriff George Erwin decided to expand on DARE lessons taught in the fifth grade classroom. Lt. Gloria Nock, who has worked with the camp from its inception, said that it has grown with great success from a day camp with 35 campers to an overnight excursion with hundreds.

Kids from all over the county in public, private and homeschool settings gather at DARE Camp each August to do archery, swimming, zip-lining, canoeing, crafts and to learn about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Each August, adults in various professions ask for a week off of work to come and help out at the camp.

“It has an impact on us as officers. Everybody looks forward to it. We do have to deal with the criminal element so often in our job and it's just fun for us and a different thing we can do to make a difference to the community,” Nock said, even if the difference starts small.

“I don't know why I didn't use drugs. Part of it could have been the camps I went to, it was the church I was in, it was the parents I had, it was the big sister and brother that I had. It all goes together. We just want to be a small part of that,” she said.

“Even if you lose people along the way and you will it doesn't mean that it's a write-off,” Sheriff McDonald said, adding they'll remember what they learned in DARE.

“The seed that's sown today may not harvest tomorrow, but later down the line,” Dalton said. “The thorns may have it choked out at this point, but it can spring forward.”

The DARE camps will be held Aug. 13-16 and 17-19 at Camp Pinewood. Donations can be brought or mailed to Henderson County DARE Program, 100 North Grove Street, Hendersonville, NC 28792. Online contributions can be made through a Paypal link on the department's website at http://www.hendersoncountync.org/sheriff/dare.html

<p>When Henderson County commissioners failed to reach a majority vote on spending $9,000 to study the need for a sixth ABC store, it sparked a debate on funding and queued a chorus of support for the sheriff's DARE program.</p><p>Without a budget to write checks from, the ABC board asked the county to pay for the market study. A former alcoholic who now counsels children at the county's DARE camp asked commissioners to instead give $9,000 to the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program.</p><p>But Sheriff Charles McDonald thinks it's a mistake to link the two funding issues. While he wholeheartedly supports DARE camp, McDonald says private fundraising is the appropriate way to keep the program going.</p><p>Funding for DARE camp was hacked a few years ago after a 7.5 percent across-the-board countywide budget cut sliced into the Henderson County Sheriff's Office. The $30,000 reserved for the camp, an extension of the DARE curriculum taught to fifth graders in school, was trimmed to $5,000.</p><p>Seeing the 19-year-old camp now attended by close to 240 kids each August in peril, the community stepped up and raised funds. </p><p>“Last year when I came in, one of the first things that I was faced with was the fact that there had been some money raised from the private sector to go towards DARE camp. It would be hard to turn that money back and cancel the camp,” McDonald said.</p><p>He found a few more places to save money and added another $10,000 to the pot last year, spending a total of $15,000 of his department's budget to cover the camp. The Sheriff's Office also supports the program with about 15 staffed officers during the six-day run of the two three-day back-to-back camps.</p><p>“We provide a substantial support just in man hours” for the camp, McDonald said.</p><p>The department has no plans to stop the program as long as the funding to support it exists, but the sheriff believes the funding should not be pried from the pockets of taxpayers.</p><p>“I'm 100 percent behind the concept because of what the program does, the way it touches kids. It transforms lives,” McDonald said. “It certainly touches and blesses the lives of the officers that are involved. They're very passionate about it.”</p><p>He added that the county commissioners are also very pro-DARE. “I think the thing that kind of bothered me a little bit or I think bothered a lot of people was there was some sort of correlation that this $9,000, that has nothing to do with the sheriff's office… somehow took money out of our pocket to provide for DARE,” he said, which isn't the case. “I truly believe in this program, but I … have a problem believing that it is a responsibility of county government or the taxpayers at large to fund the whole thing.</p><p>“I think that there are enough entrepreneurs and businesspeople and folks that have really been touched by this program out here that, like in the days past, they'll step up and they'll provide the resources. And we'll certainly continue to provide all the support we can at the sheriff's office. But you have a county commission and a county manager, who are doing everything they can to ease the burden to the taxpayer within reason,” he said. “I think it's unfair to ask them to be fiscally responsible in that regard and then expect that this program or any other program like it ought to be funded by the taxpayer. I think if the taxpayers fund it, they ought to have the choice to fund it and they ought to be given the opportunity to write the check.”</p><p>McDonald said that he'd also like to get two years ahead in funding the program, but he agreed with past leaders who considered paying full-time sworn officers to focus entirely on fundraising was not fiscally prudent.</p><p>This year, the fate of the camp once again rests on public support. A little more than $14,000 has been raised so far in DARE dances and other benefits. A 24-hour Run for DARE is set to be held at North Henderson High School April 19-20.</p><p>Steve “Boulder” Dalton and his 12-year-old daughter, Matana, have helped lead the race in raising funds. The upcoming Run for DARE was their idea.</p><p>Dalton also is the man who asked the commissioners to divert funds for the ABC study to the camp.</p><p> <b>Transforming testimony</b></p><p>Dalton has witnessed a transformation in the camp, not just in the fifth graders who attend it and in their slightly-older peers who serve as counselors, but in himself.</p><p>“It's hard to put a measure on how many of these kids are not becoming the Steve Dalton of 20 years ago and tied into that world, but the faces and the kids and the stories that we see every year lets me know how important this program is,” he said.</p><p>Dalton grew up in a good, Christian home, was a star student and stand-out athlete before he fell into a life of alcoholism and methamphetamine addiction. He was handed his first beer in ninth grade. He was busted in college for impaired driving after he funnelled a 12-pack and stole road signs with his friends. His parents brought him back home.</p><p>“I started working on the farm. I started going to A-B Tech … and that's when my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I watched my hero waste away before me, and the only way that I knew how to deal with that was more booze,” he said. “My dad, within six months, passed away, and the drinking progressed and progressed (until) where that one … Miller led to me drinking a fifth of liquor every single day.”</p><p>Another guy introduced him to cocaine to “help you drink more,” he said. “That one line of cocaine eventually led to me doing $300 worth of meth a week, tied into the methamphetamine world from California to Mexico, here in Henderson County. I was married at this time to my high school sweetheart. She just thought I had a drinking problem."</p><p>“I was physically a wreck. I weighed 220 pounds, skin draped over bones. I had holes ate in my stomach from all the meth and all the abuse,” he said. “I ended up in rehab in Brevard. I stayed clean for three days, thought I had it licked because that was the longest I'd been clean in five years. I came back home, stayed clean for three weeks. I ended up going and picking up some more dope. My thought was since I was clean I could sell it and get back out of debt. I couldn't make it home before I was in that dope.”</p><p>His wife left him.</p><p>“I sat there for three days trying to figure out how this guy with this bright future became an addict and an alcoholic and the only thing at that point that looked worse to me than my past was my future,” he said. “I knew I'd always been an addict. I'd always been an alcoholic. I hadn't been able to quit. In the drug world, I always carried a .357, and it was sitting beside me and I picked that .357 up and I put it to my head.</p><p>“I began to pull the trigger … a voice spoke,” he said, his voice quivering from a sudden onset of tears. The voice was not audible, he said, but he heard it clearly say, “ 'Let me in control of your life.' I got down on my knees and accepted Jesus Christ in my heart and raised up and said, 'God, you don't have anything here, but if you'll take me I'm yours.' I gave my life to God then, and I haven't had a drug or a drink since.”</p><p>Dalton has been clean and sober for close to 20 years.</p><p>“It set me on fire, told me that my mission was to keep other kids from living this life. At least tell them what that life's all about,” Dalton said. “When I came out and began speaking three months into this, I promise you the drug world didn't like it. I've had hit-men show up, my house threatened to be burned down, (they) told me I needed to keep my mouth shut, but God has sustained (me), took care of (me) and I kept going. I've joined forces with the people that used to chase me in this mission.”</p><p><b>On a mission</b></p><p>Nineteen years ago, then-Sheriff George Erwin decided to expand on DARE lessons taught in the fifth grade classroom. Lt. Gloria Nock, who has worked with the camp from its inception, said that it has grown with great success from a day camp with 35 campers to an overnight excursion with hundreds.</p><p>Kids from all over the county in public, private and homeschool settings gather at DARE Camp each August to do archery, swimming, zip-lining, canoeing, crafts and to learn about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. Each August, adults in various professions ask for a week off of work to come and help out at the camp.</p><p>“It has an impact on us as officers. Everybody looks forward to it. We do have to deal with the criminal element so often in our job and it's just fun for us and a different thing we can do to make a difference to the community,” Nock said, even if the difference starts small.</p><p>“I don't know why I didn't use drugs. Part of it could have been the camps I went to, it was the church I was in, it was the parents I had, it was the big sister and brother that I had. It all goes together. We just want to be a small part of that,” she said.</p><p>“Even if you lose people along the way and you will it doesn't mean that it's a write-off,” Sheriff McDonald said, adding they'll remember what they learned in DARE.</p><p>“The seed that's sown today may not harvest tomorrow, but later down the line,” Dalton said. “The thorns may have it choked out at this point, but it can spring forward.”</p><p>The DARE camps will be held Aug. 13-16 and 17-19 at Camp Pinewood. Donations can be brought or mailed to Henderson County DARE Program, 100 North Grove Street, Hendersonville, NC 28792. Online contributions can be made through a Paypal link on the department's website at http://www.hendersoncountync.org/sheriff/dare.html</p><p>For more information, email ncdare2@hendersoncountync.org</p><p>Reach Weaver at Emily.weaver@blueridgenow.com or 828-694-7867.</p>